matmico399 wrote:Hawg Your “hiding from my ex wife in our bedroom” comment made me laugh out loud. You were not alone my friend. Luckily I Now have a great girlfriend who actually enjoys gaming some.

I spent a lot of time hiding from my ex-wife. I would hide in the bedroom, at friends' homes, in my office -- just anywhere to get away from her, really.

My wife now games a bit. I well remember her staying up until 2 a.m. right after we were married because she wouldn't go to bed until she beat my score at Kool-Aid man on the 2600. She and I spent a of time playing Crash Team Racing on the PS1, too.

HawgWyld wrote:Oddly, I played Taipan in college a lot. That is odd because I got my Apple //e in 1987 a few days before I started college and that computer was well on its way out at that time. However, I was one of the few kids around who had his own computer and most students relied on the Macintosh lab on campus for writing papers and such. I loved the //e, though, and still think it's funny that the maximum number of pages I could get out of the word processor (AppleWorks) was 20 due to the memory limitations of the system (an "elephantine" 128k). Also, because I didn't have a hard drive, the spell check was run through a floppy-based dictionary and took forever. I miss that computer a lot -- it had beer spilled on it more than once and just kept going strong.

Now, speaking of all these games reminds me of my favorite inventions in years -- the Hyperkin Retron 5. It might be heresy to essentially play my NES, SNES and Genesis on an emulator when I have the original equipment, but the HDMI upscaling and the fact I can use my original controller make that system a winner in my book.

I miss the Apple IIe as well. Never spilt a beer on one, so you're one up on me.

Dave's place here is kinda half and half on emulation. There are those elsewhere that scream about it like a prohibitionist railing against the evils of alcohol, or perfectionists that bemoan its failings, but its usually pretty civil here.

For me, I game on lots of original hardware, like a TI99/4a. In fact, hobbyists have made the old hardware more accessible than ever. I got a 32k RAM expansion for it that plugs into the sidecar slot, and presto, a supped up TI right there. Yet I also play on a Retron 3 (hardware emulation), and really enjoy using cartridges. ,I have just got one of these Retro-Bit Retrocades that Dave just reviewed. I figure that thing is basically a Retropie anyway, but wow, some of those games are crisp. There are also times I've worked to get on things like the PLATO system to try something (and if you know what that is, you are also very old)

HawgWyld wrote:Tecmo Super NBA (primarily because I used to play it when I was hiding from my ex-wife in our bedroom)

You are not alone, sir! Glad to see so much support for you on this forum, especially from those of us that have been in similar situations. Swap out Tecmo Super NBA for Tecmo Super Bowl, and the bedroom for a basement, and we have virtually the same story. Ah, the "good" old days :-/

As far as my list goes, I'm going to do what others have mentioned, and do a list of favorites. In some cases, "favorite" game and "best" game are the same. As time's gone on, though, I've come to spend the most time playing games that, while they may not be the best, are just plain fun. In my mind, those kind of games are the best games. My list will reflect that.

HawgWyld wrote:Oddly, I played Taipan in college a lot. That is odd because I got my Apple //e in 1987 a few days before I started college and that computer was well on its way out at that time. However, I was one of the few kids around who had his own computer and most students relied on the Macintosh lab on campus for writing papers and such. I loved the //e, though, and still think it's funny that the maximum number of pages I could get out of the word processor (AppleWorks) was 20 due to the memory limitations of the system (an "elephantine" 128k). Also, because I didn't have a hard drive, the spell check was run through a floppy-based dictionary and took forever. I miss that computer a lot -- it had beer spilled on it more than once and just kept going strong.

Now, speaking of all these games reminds me of my favorite inventions in years -- the Hyperkin Retron 5. It might be heresy to essentially play my NES, SNES and Genesis on an emulator when I have the original equipment, but the HDMI upscaling and the fact I can use my original controller make that system a winner in my book.

I miss the Apple IIe as well. Never spilt a beer on one, so you're one up on me.

Dave's place here is kinda half and half on emulation. There are those elsewhere that scream about it like a prohibitionist railing against the evils of alcohol, or perfectionists that bemoan its failings, but its usually pretty civil here.

For me, I game on lots of original hardware, like a TI99/4a. In fact, hobbyists have made the old hardware more accessible than ever. I got a 32k RAM expansion for it that plugs into the sidecar slot, and presto, a supped up TI right there. Yet I also play on a Retron 3 (hardware emulation), and really enjoy using cartridges. ,I have just got one of these Retro-Bit Retrocades that Dave just reviewed. I figure that thing is basically a Retropie anyway, but wow, some of those games are crisp. There are also times I've worked to get on things like the PLATO system to try something (and if you know what that is, you are also very old)

PLATO system, eh? Never heard of that. In terms of age, I was a mere eight-years-old when the Atari VCS was released and well remember a neighbor getting one for Christmas around that time (he had the Sears version and one game -- a copy of Target Fun (the Sears version of Air-Sea Battle)). I was instantly hooked.

Now, I do remember the TI99/4A as my cousin had one. Great, great system that people should recall more fondly. How long have you had one of those? It always seemed to be a great system that was just killed in the home computer wars with Commodore, Atari, etc.

Now, here's the thing about emulation -- we got rid of our last tube television years ago. My choices were to either figure out a way to upscale my hardware for use on an HD set or spend a few bucks on a Retron 5. I'm lazy and my kids wind up absorbing a lot of my money, so I chose the Retron 5 and I'm actually glad I did. I like the upscaling and automatic save states. I love cartridges, too, and you just can't beat the original controllers. When my daughter leaves home in a couple of years and her room is freed up, I may get a tube TV and put it in there so playing my Atari 2600 and 7800 won't be such a chore.

HawgWyld wrote:Tecmo Super NBA (primarily because I used to play it when I was hiding from my ex-wife in our bedroom)

You are not alone, sir! Glad to see so much support for you on this forum, especially from those of us that have been in similar situations. Swap out Tecmo Super NBA for Tecmo Super Bowl, and the bedroom for a basement, and we have virtually the same story. Ah, the "good" old days :-/

Heck, I played a lot of Tecmo Super Bowl while married to my ex -- got interested in Super NBA when our marriage was in real trouble (for some reason).